Synchronous Digital Reference Cost Effectiveness Calculator
*A single asterisk signifies that the end user can change the number in the cell to the right.
** The "Mean salary of librarians per hour is taken from Table 2-1 of the National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States, July 2003, U.S. Department of Labor, Elaine L. Chao, Secretary, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Kathleen P. Utgoff, Commissioner. September 2004. Bulletin 2568.
Available at: http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/sp/ncbl0658.pdf (accessed March 10, 2005). This value was then adjusted from 2003 Dollars to 2005 dollars using the Inflation Calculator available at: http://www.bls.gov/ (accessed March 10, 2005).
*** The "Penalty fee per failed reference transaction" has a default setting of $3.08. This is same as the $2.00 per question fee used in the 1989 WOREP study adjusted for inflation using the Inflation Calculator mentioned above. The Penalty fee is described in: Murfin, M. Cost analysis of library reference services. Advances in Library Administration and
Organization v. 11 (1993) p. 1-36.
Formulas used for calculations:
"Labor cost of meetings (assuming 1 hour meetings) per year" equals the "Number of internal reference committee/task force/work group meetings per year" times the "Average meeting attendance" times the "Mean salary of librarians per hour."
"Cost of software per year" equals the "Number of service points" times the "Cost of software per year per seat."
"Cost of software per minute of service" equals the "Cost of software per year" divided by the quantity, 49 (assumes a 49 week year with 3 weeks of suspended service) times 60 times the "Number of service hours per week," end quantity.
"Mean salary for librarians per minute" equals "Mean salary for librarians per hour" divided by 60.
"Estimated salary per reference transaction" equals the "Average length of the reference transaction in minutes" times the "Mean salary for librarians per minute."
"Estimated total labor cost per reference transaction (salary with fringe benefits)" equals the "Estimated salary per reference transaction" plus the quantity, "Estimated salary per reference transaction" times 29.2 divided by 70.8, end quantity. Note that 29.2 divided by 70.8 is the ratio of benefits to wages and salaries. Both numbers were cited in Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Summary for September of 2004 available at: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm (accessed March 10, 2005).
"Estimated total labor cost per month" equals the "Reference transactions per month" times the "Estimated total labor cost per reference transaction (salary with fringe benefits)."
"Estimated total labor cost per year" equals the "Estimated total labor cost per month" times 12 months times 49 weeks divided by 52 weeks.
"Estimated total cost per year" equals the "Labor cost of meetings (assuming 1 hour meetings) per year" plus the "Cost of software per year" plus the "Consortium fee for the service per year" plus the "After hours service cost per year" plus the "Estimated total labor cost per year."
